Kucinich lends moral support to postal hunger strike

By TOMER OVADIA

06/25/2012 01:49 PM EDT

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Monday helped kick off a hunger strike of postal workers protesting what they say is an effort to privatize and dismantle the cash-strapped United States Postal Service.

The strike — which includes 10 postal workers, union activists and supporters, but not Kucinich himself — is the latest in a long saga of efforts to reform the postal service as it faces a dim financial future.

While lawmakers generally agree that postal reform is necessary, they disagree on the specifics.

“Make no mistake about it, this is an effort to try to privatize even more postal services,” Kucinich said in reference to GOP efforts.

The strikers focused on a requirement they say mandates that the postal service pre-fund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance, drawing scarce revenues the postal service needs to evolve.

“The postal service has adapted to the change in the volume of mail,” said Jamie Partridge, a national coordinator of Communities and Postal Workers United. “That’s not what’s killing the postal service. Not the Internet. Not private competition. Not even the recession. It’s this prefunded mandate.”

Kucinich argued that Republicans, by seeking to dismantle the postal service, compromise its effectiveness. That in turn allows conservative critics to point to it as an example of government waste and ineffectiveness, Kucinich said.

Republicans say the postal service is inefficient and slow to adapt to changing modes of communication. The postal service’s mail volume decreased to 169 billion pieces of mail in 2011, a 17 percent drop from the 202.8 billion pieces delivered in 2002.

“Ever since [the postal service’s] creation, Congress has layered on new rules and unfunded mandates,” said Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Collective bargaining agreements that have prohibited them from making changes bring us to our current situation, where mail volume is declining. And mail volume is declining for reasons that are very good for the economy. People don’t use as much paper anymore.”

The Senate passed a postal reform bill in April that would make it more difficult for post offices to close and allow the postmaster general to offer buyouts and incentives to shrink the size of its workforce, including $11 billion in early retirement incentives.

The House has yet to pass a matching bill, although two dueling bills have been working their way through the process.

Issa has promoted the Issa-Ross Postal Reform Act, which passed his committee in October and will come before the full House in July or August, according to Ahmad.

“[Issa’s bill] goes in the direction that helps support privatization,” Kucinich said. “So I am not going to support that in any way, shape or form.”

Democrats have instead rallied around H.R. 1351, which they say Issa isn’t allowing to come to a vote before the committee. Ahmad said the legislation failed as an amendment to Issa’s bill after a Congressional Budget Office report refuted its core assumptions.

The protesters plan to hold rallies on Capitol Hill, USPS headquarters and the office of the Washington Post (which has endorsed Issa’s bill) before breaking their fast Thursday evening.

Asked if he intends to join the hunger strike himself, Kucinich said, “I’m a vegan, so I’m kind of hungry all the time. I’m here in moral support of their efforts.”